To My Younger Brethren | Page 3

a Picture of
a very grave Person hang up against the Wall, and this was the fashion
of it: It had eyes lift up to Heaven, the best of Books was in its hand, the
Law of Truth was written upon its lips, the World was behind his back;
it stood as if it Pleaded with Men, and a Crown of gold did hang over
its head."
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD (i.).
Pastor, for the round of toil See the toiling soul is fed; Shut the
chamber, light the oil, Break and eat the Spirit's bread; Life to others
would'st thou bring? Live thyself upon thy King.
Let me explain in this first sentence that when in these pages I address
"my Younger Brethren," I mean brethren in the Christian Ministry in
the Church of England. Let me limit my reference still further, by
premising that very much of what I say will be said as to brethren who
have lately taken holy Orders, and are engaged in the work of assistant
Curacies.
AIM OF THE BOOK.
Day by day, for many years past, my life has lain among men preparing
themselves for just that work. As a matter of course my thoughts have
run incessantly in that direction. Many a lecture in the library where we
work together, and many a conversation in dining-hall, or by study fire,
or in college garden, or on country road, has given point to those
thoughts and enabled me, I trust, better to understand my younger
Brethren, and with more sympathy to make myself, as an elder brother,
understood by them. What I here seek to do, with the gracious aid of
our blessed Master, is somewhat to extend the range of such talks, and
to ask a friendly hearing from younger Brethren in the holy Ministry
with whom I have never had the opportunity of speaking personally.
I have not the least intention of writing a treatise on the Christian
Pastorate. To talk to young Christian Ministers about some important
details of pastoral life and work, but above all of life, inward and
outward--this is my simple purpose.
* * * * *
THREE LINES OF PRAYER.

One day in each week, at Ridley Hall, we unite in special prayer,
without liturgical form, for those members of the Hall who have gone
out into actual ministry. As I lead my dear younger Brethren in that
supplication, the heart feels itself full of many, very many,
well-remembered faces, characters, lives. It seems to see those many
old friends scattered abroad in the Lord's work-field; and it sees, of
course, a very large variety among them, in the way of both character
and circumstances. But, with all this consciousness of differences, my
thoughts and my petitions always, by a deep necessity, run for all alike
along three main paths. The first prayer is for the young Clergyman's
inner and secret Life and Walk with God. The second is for his daily
and hourly general Intercourse with Men. The third is for his official
Ministrations of the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel. And in all
these directions, after all, one desire, one prayer, has to be offered, the
prayer that everywhere and always, from the inmost recesses of life to
its largest and most public circumference, the Lord and Master may
take, and keep, full possession of the servant. I pray that in secret
devotion, and in secret habits, Jesus Christ may be intensely present
with the man; and that in common intercourse, in all its parts, He may
be the constant and all-influencing Companion, to stimulate, to control,
to chasten, to gladden, to empower; and that in the preaching of the
Word the servant may really and manifestly speak from, and for, and in,
his Lord; and that in ministration of the sacramental and other
Ordinances he may truly and unmistakably walk before Him in holy
simplicity, holy reverence, and full spiritual reality, "serving the Lord,"
and serving the flock, "with all humility of mind." [Acts xx. 19.]
My present talks on paper will take very much the lines of these prayers.
Secret walk with God, common and general walk with men, special
ministrations--I desire to say a little on each and all of these points, and
more or less in this order, though without attempting too rigid an
arrangement, where one subject must often run over into another.
* * * * *
SECRET WALK WITH GOD.
Let me take up the first great topic of the three for a few preliminary

words in this chapter: THE SECRET WALK WITH GOD of the young
Pastor of Christ's flock.
HINDRANCES: WORK.
My brotherly reader will not need any long explanation or careful
apology from me here. He knows as well as